Writing A sky of Infinite Blue — A Japanese Immigrant’s Search for Home and Self

The memoir, “A Sky of Infinite Blue— A Japanese Immigrant’s Search for Home and Self,” is about my journey of healing, spiritual growth, and love. The journey was not only described in the book, but also by writing it, I transformed myself spiritually along with my Buddhist pursuit. 

In my forming years up to early twenties, I wrote lots of essays and poems. Writing for me back then felt like speaking to my heart and to my best friend with honesty and clarity. At the beginning of 2017, nine months after my late husband, Patrick’s passing, I was still in deep grief of him and our life. But at the same time, I pretended as if I were okay by juggling all the logistics to perfection. Soon, it became crystal clear that I was living in lies. I couldn’t stand what I’d been doing and wanted to change myself and my life. That’s why I took a pen and began writing, but I had no idea the writing would one day become a book.  

Within six months after I began, I accumulated lots of writings consisting of many essays; some were short, and others were very long. These writings were like my personal journals and contained the outburst and spills of cries, raw emotions, and doubts that were accumulated inside me for years without proper outlets. As I wrote, I re-experienced pains, loneliness, and anguish over and over again, so I cried out loud a lot during this period. I needed writing as my mental, psychological and spiritual outlet and communication within me.

In the following six months or so, perhaps almost two years altogether after Patrick’s passing, I began to think my writing could become a book. I thought my experience would help those who might have undergone some similar situations. 

This was also the time I realized my writing would need to transform in many ways through (1) a better craft and more knowledge on book writing, (2) disciplined and persistent writing habit, (3) deep reflective yet relatable stories, and (4) prolific and productive sessions of writing. I began to take more and more classes and courses and tried to pen sharper and more insightful reflections on the pages. However, I was still too wounded to dig down deeper inside me. I felt I wanted to protect my many unanswered questions and deeper emotions from exposing and expressing back then. 

At this point, I could have given up my hope to make my writing a book. But instead, I began to work harder, face deeper wounds, therefore I knew I would be able to find the truths in me. I still cried out so loud but the reason for crying seemed to have changed. I cried because I’d begun a journey to accept what was real in my life and cultivate the agency regardless of the ache of making the writing better. The first draft that I call a raw draft was done almost two years after I began to write.

My best decision to make a book real was to take a couple of consecutive six-month courses in attempts to revise the raw draft. By that time, my daily spiritual discipline as a Buddhist had helped me shape my writing habit and bring out my courage to face my fears of the unknown. 

During that year the process of my book writing was not only technical improvement. While I underwent the process of facing ‘the substance’ of grieving, I revisited many places in the past, tried to find my own truths. I had a sense of trust in this process, so I fearlessly dug down into the terrains to which I’d refused to go before. Staying open to be vulnerable and truthful, through this painstaking sometimes agonizing effort, various sufferings in the past were crystalized to my eyes and in my mind with clarity, lifted as if I took them into my hands, and transcended them in the process. A strong sense of consistency, diligence, and mindful reflections as powerful tools, and the support from the coaches, I could finally complete the book. 

In the end, I found myself in the numerous small lights, like fireflies, came out of what I once thought were rubbles. Then the light radiated through the whole, I was enveloped in the light. I’d never forget how humble and grateful I felt in the light. 

After all, I feel this book is not only my book, but has become our book. All the support, help by many coaches, mentors and editors, publishers and publicists, and readers, it’s become our book. I believe this book will whisper to your hearts, and also make you feel like screaming for a change. It has entered into the world to shine on your lives. 

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Kyomi O’Connor is the author of the forthcoming memoir A Sky of Infinite Blue: A Japanese Immigrant’s Search for Home and Self will publish in September 2022. In actively working to address her past emotional abuse, she moved to the States in 1990 to work as a researcher. There she met her husband-to-be, Patrick, an English researcher with Irish heritage. Her life journey led to a career change when the couple moved to San Diego for his job, and when together they entered into Buddhist practice. As Patrick became ill in 2013, Kyomi took care of him for three years until his death. Writing her memoir has been part of her journey to find the wholeness of herself.

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A Sky of Infinite Blue: A Japanese Immigrant’s Search for Home and Self

From an early age, Kyomi’s life was filled with emotional difficulties—an adulterous father, an overreliant mother, and a dismissive extended family. In an effort to escape the darkness of her existence in Japan, Kyomi moved to the States in February 1990 to start a new life as a researcher working at NIH in Bethesda, MD. Soon, she fell in love with her husband-to-be: Patrick, a warm, charismatic British cancer researcher whose unconditional love and support helped her begin to heal the traumas of her past. Eventually, their journey together led them to change their careers and move to San Diego, CA, where they dedicated themselves to a Buddhism practice that changed both their lives—aiding them in their spiritual growth and in realizing their desire to help others.Then Patrick was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic melanoma in the brain—and, after a fierce, three-year-long battle against his cancer, died on July 4, 2016. Devastated, Kyomi spent a year lost in grief. But when she one day began to write, she discovered that doing so allowed her to uncover truths about herself, her life history, and her relationship with Patrick. In the process, she surfaced many old, unhealed wounds—but ultimately writing became her daily spiritual practice, and many truths emerged out of the darkness. After many years of struggle and searching, Kyomi finally found the love and light that had existed within her all along.

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